Every time I travel I'm awestruck how badly my internet providor can screw things up for me. It's only been a month and all the access numbers have changed. The domain names have changed. That wouldn't be such a big deal except that I've got a whole bunch of access tables which allow me to do things from trusted places, and when they change the name I can't do anything until I figure out how to fix it. And of course I can't fix it because I'm not in a trusted place.

Every parent's nightmare - two birthday parties in one day. No it isn't the presents. It's the sugar. It's almost midnight and my daughter is still bouncing off the walls.

Yet another thing that would be hilarious if it didn't indicate such a sad state of affairs. I wrote customer support at the place that forwards my email about the problems I had with delays last week. I asked a simple question - if I turn their service off and use my own mail service, will I still receive mail that was already queued for me by their service. Simple question. I wonder why I bother to write to email tech support lines. In the last four years, not one has read the question I asked and tried to answer it. They answer lots of questions, usually the most common ones. I'm not an idiot and I sorta' know what I'm doing with tech stuff. I know the answers to the common questions. If I have to ask a question it is very specific. I want to know precisely what their software does when confronted with situation 'x'; already knowing the range of possible answers. Whoever answered my mail said basically - yes mail was backed up last week. It's all fixed now. Sorry for the problems. The question was how their queue worked if I reconfigured my account. The problem is that this is usually the only published communications link for most companies. It is the only place you can ask the tough questions. If it is manned by idiots, there is no way to get the answer. Sigh...